Donald Trump is seeking £1.2billion in extra NASA funding to achieve his mission of returning to the moon.

The US President announced his ambition to restore the space agency to its former glory in a tweet posted late last night.

Mr Trump's intervention follows previous comments by Vice President Mike Pence about accelerating plans to put US astronauts back on the moon.

He tweeted: "Under my administration, we are restoring NASA to greatness and we are going back to the moon, then Mars. I am updating my budget to include an additional $1.6 billion so that we can return to space in a BIG WAY!"

Donald Trump has accelerated plans for America to return to the surface of the moon (Image: REUTERS)

Trump hopes to return NASA to its former glory with the funding boost (Image: CHRIS KLEPONIS/POOL/EPA-EFE/REX)

The proposed increase would bring NASA's total spending level for the 2020 fiscal year to £17.4billion.

The bulk of the increase is earmarked for research and development for a human lunar landing system, according to a summary provided by NASA.

NASA previously aimed to return crewed spacecraft to the lunar surface by the year 2028, after first putting a "gateway" station into orbit around the moon by 2024.

The newly accelerated goal - an endeavour likely to cost tens of billions of dollars - comes as NASA has struggled with the help of private partners to resume human space missions from U.S. soil for the first time since the shuttle program ended in 2011.

American astronauts last landed on the moon in 1972 (Image: REUTERS)

Trump has plans for NASA to one day reach Mars (Image: CHRIS KLEPONIS/POOL/EPA-EFE/REX)

"I'm worried that without proper congressional buy-in, this budget amendment is at best, a massive waste of time, and at worst, pushing risky political timelines that could set NASA back for years," Larson told Reuters.

"The next leap in space will be fueled by commercial companies changing the way we do business in space while creating new technologies and innovations," he said.